I'm glad that the original German edition is translated into English because the book serves as a very good introduction to Van Gogh's life and work. It includes a brief and complete biography of the artist's life, the timelines with important events during his living years, a closer look behind each well-known work in chronological order and suggestions for further reading and locations to visit his paintings. I also discovered many more beloved works of Vincent van Gogh, such as Autumn Landscape with Four Trees, Vegetable Gardens in Montmartre (La Butte), Two Cut Sunflowers, Cypresses with Two Female Figures. One thing I need to mention that the photo quality is quite poor and the colours of Van Gogh's works are pretty much desaturated.

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"Here art is linked to a message: art should evoke emotions. That is why it was important for Van Gogh not to paint things as they appear, objectively speaking, but rather as he saw them, transfigured by his emotions. That too leads to 'untruths, but to untruths that are truer than the outwardly visible truth.' ".

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" 'My brushstroke does not keep to any one particular technique,' wrote Van Gogh to the painter Émile Bernard from Arles in April 1888: 'I thrust irregular brushstrokes onto the canvas and leave them as they are. Thick dabs of paint, bare patches of canvas, here and there a completely unfinished section, overpainting, roughness; in short the result is, I'm afraid, pretty disconcerting and annoying and will by no means satisfy those with established opinions about technique.'" ".